misuse
Americannoun
-
misuses
plural
-
wrong or improper use; misapplication.
- Synonyms:
- misappropriation, misemployment
-
Obsolete. bad or abusive treatment.
verb (used with object)
-
misuses,
present (3rd person singular)
-
misused,
past participle, past
-
misusing
present participle
-
to use wrongly or improperly; misapply.
-
to treat badly or abusively; maltreat.
noun
-
erroneous, improper, or unorthodox use
misuse of words
-
cruel or inhumane treatment
verb
-
to use wrongly
-
to treat badly or harshly
-
to use (something, esp alcohol, drugs, etc) improperly
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
misusesimple
-
misusessimple
-
have misusedperfect
-
has misusedperfect
-
am misusingprogressive
-
are misusingprogressive
-
is misusingprogressive
-
have been misusingperfect progressive
-
has been misusingperfect progressive
Past
-
misusedsimple
-
had misusedperfect
-
was misusingprogressive
-
were misusingprogressive
-
had been misusingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of misuse
Middle English word dating back to 1350–1400; see origin at mis- 1, use
Explanation
Misuse is using something incorrectly or in a harmful way. I warned you that repeated misuse of your cellphone would break it — I can't believe you were texting in the shower! You can use this word as a noun or a verb, with just a slight change in pronunciation. As a noun, misuse rhymes moose. But when you misuse the money your parents gave you for groceries, spending it all on candy and comic books, misuse rhymes with confuse. A less-common meaning of the verb is "treat someone badly."
Vocabulary lists containing misuse
mis-
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mis-
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Florida's B.E.S.T. Common Prefixes: mis-
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
But disinformation researchers are warning it could enable bad actors to misuse Google Earth -- a key resource for fact-checking and verification -- to create realistic geospatial fakes.
From Barron's ● Jul. 31, 2026
Comptroller Jonathan Gould called these banks’ debanking policies an “unfortunate” misuse of “their government-granted charter and market power.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2026
An apparent misuse of the technology also led to the most controversial incident in the tournament.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 12, 2026
Although most incidents involved accidental dosing or therapeutic mistakes rather than intentional misuse, the sheer size of the increase surprised the research team.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 9, 2026
Francis wanted no time lost in seeing whether a satisfactory three-dimensional model could be built, since the geneticists and nucleic-acid biochemists should not misuse their time and facilities any longer than necessary.
From "Double Helix" by James D. Watson
Under current law, queries are reported annually to Congress so misuses of the program are identified.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 13, 2026
Yet one doesn’t need an AI bot to explain why Grammarly’s stunt has to rank among the sleaziest misuses of AI technology yet to appear.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 17, 2026
"It misuses the gravity and impact of terrorism to expand it beyond those clear boundaries, to encompass further conduct that is already criminal under the law," he added.
From BBC ● Jul. 25, 2025
Recently, she’s chronicled on X the expulsion of New York Republican George Santos, who was booted from the House following a searing ethics report detailing misuses of campaign funds.
From Salon ● Jan. 18, 2024
Is has four perfectly distinct meanings in English, besides misuses of the word.
From The philosophy of B*rtr*nd R*ss*ll by Various
A group of seven states also challenged the TotalEnergies agreement in court, arguing that the deal misused government funds and failed to follow proper administrative procedures.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026
There is the possibility of the models’ being misused for cyber or biological attacks, Anthropic Chief Executive Dario Amodei said in a recent blog post.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 2, 2026
Studios worried about their intellectual property being misused, and actors feared becoming little more than raw material for AI systems -- and made it a central plank of their strike action in 2023.
From Barron's ● Jul. 22, 2026
For Carlo, those risks include the potential for sensitive children's data, such as proof of age and face scans, to be stolen and misused.
From BBC ● Jun. 20, 2026
“I think you just misused a word, but I don’t know what it means.”
From "Paper Towns" by John Green
The judge ordered Guo to forfeit $889 million following his July 2024 felony conviction for misusing followers’ funds.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 29, 2026
Some city leaders had also dinged the county for misusing homelessness money generated from a previous sales tax and argued this new pot of dollars would be handled no better.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 10, 2026
The suit seeks to block the foundation from allegedly misusing NRA trademarks and funds—and from breaking away from the NRA.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 2, 2026
Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, who has contributed to The New York Times, PBS, and Al Jazeera English, was arrested on March 3 for allegedly spreading false information, harming national security and misusing his mobile phone.
From Barron's ● Apr. 25, 2026
Jonas remembered, suddenly and grimly, the time in his childhood when he had been chastised for misusing a word.
From "The Giver" by Lois Lowry
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
